


Something About Silence

by hayesgeneration



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Ficlet, Gen, Mornings, Pack Family, Pack Feels, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 04:49:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hayesgeneration/pseuds/hayesgeneration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What about <i>your</i> family?” Derek asks, the word slightly dry in his mouth, shifting carefully to lie on his back, pulling Isaac with him like deadweight. Erica sidles up close under his arm, and Derek whuffles into her hair, breath wafting over Boyd’s hand on her shoulder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something About Silence

Sometimes, just when Isaac wakes up, Derek hears him catch and hold his breath.

It’s like the teen needs to prepare himself to open his eyes every morning, needs to listen first; listen for abnormalities or the sound of his new life having gone during the night. Isaac keeps his eyes closed, his mouth sealed, but Derek can hear the breath building behind Isaac’s tongue for a few, long seconds, waiting. Derek breathes out heavily, and tightens the arm looped around Isaac’s front. As always, Isaac tenses minutely, then goes boneless and relieved against the press of Derek’s torso, before he exhales, very softly through his mouth, and drifts off again.

Sometimes, just when Derek wakes up and it’s quiet, the smell of morning damp and chilly in his nostrils, he spends ten seconds just staring into the back of Isaac’s neck. He gets the most unbelievable bedhead, that boy, curls looping around one ear and matted down on the other side of his head, deposited on Derek’s sleeping, buzzing upper arm.

He’ll stare at the back of Isaac’s head, feel Erica shift slightly on his other side, no doubt aware he’s awake (she always knows, and she always rises early, mostly stays down on weekends because she doesn’t want to leave the warm mass of bodies), listen to Boyd’s broken snoring from her other side. It’s early, maybe 6 am, and with the full moon less than 24 hours away, all Derek wants is to sleep until the itching in his legs becomes too prominent and he needs to stand, crawl into the wolf, and run.

Isaac turns, presses his hair up against Derek’s chin and his nose into Derek’s collarbone. The kid’s legs are sticking out over the end of the mattress, they have to be.

The silence feels like it’s sitting in Derek’s skin; an almost bone-deep ache, a good ache, something solid and soft that makes his ears perk involuntarily to listen for the sounds of the rest of the world, which seems to be sleeping as well.

“We have nothing for breakfast,” Erica whispers into the cotton covering Derek’s shoulder blades. Derek feels more than hears it when Boyd drapes himself a bit further over the girl between them. Derek hums, low in his throat. They’ll figure something out once they get up. Erica breathes with the room.

“Isaac’s foster family is going to wonder why he stays over at _Boyd’s_ on weekdays,” she points out, quietly, after a few minutes of silence. A strand of hair is tickling Derek’s nose.

“He hasn’t been with them for long, we’ll figure out a system soon enough,” Derek replies, more like a rumble than actual words, and Erica sighs and presses her cheek against the triskelion, most likely to feel the sound vibrating through his back.

Sometimes, when Derek and Erica are the only ones awake (because Boyd is a heavy sleeper, at least with them, and Isaac despises existence before 8 in the morning), Derek feels the silence seep through his skin to his bones, settle and take root, and the itching in his legs almost mutes. There’s a small, slightly damp spot on the front of his shirt from Isaac’s breath, and he can feel Erica’s heart thudding away a steady, calm rhythm that syncs up with the pulse in his wrists.

The silence is defined by the way it’s not completely quiet; punctuated by heartbeats and breaths and the shift of limbs and Derek’s sleep-stiff spine cracking just slightly when he turns.

“What about _your_ family?” he asks, the word slightly dry in his mouth, shifting carefully to lie on his back, pulling Isaac with him like deadweight. Erica sidles up close under his arm, and Derek whuffles into her hair, breath wafting over Boyd’s hand on her shoulder.

“It’s fine,” Erica replies softly, and goes back to sleep.

Sometimes, when Derek is the only one awake, he’ll trace with his eyes the string between the four of them, Boyd to Erica to Derek to Isaac, ignore the almost unbearable heat generated by four bodies and a thick quilt, and for once, just for once, allow the silence to be comforting instead of unnerving.

  

**Author's Note:**

> Erica, I'm going to bloody miss you.  
> This didn't really turn out the exact way I wanted it to, but I wanted to write pack feels, Derek & Erica, and Isaac sleeping, and try to do it with a double-oh word-count, so.


End file.
